Mission Statement:
FM-CFS Canada (formerly known as Compassion in Action) is dedicated to advancing Fibromyalgia (FM) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) education, research and treatment. The organisation received its national charity registration status on February 27, 1996.
Guiding Principles:
We open our effort to all people. We know these illnesses are hard on incomes and careers so all of our information is freely available.
Our chosen path is to work with others, complementing the abilities of our partners to develop solutions on a national scale, drawing on the community of patients, self-help groups, researchers, physicians, government and nongovernment health organisations. Our intention is to help build an organisational capacity to promote research, education, and improved treatment and achieve milestones towards the level of support enjoyed by other health causes that have similarly large communities to serve.
We believe in strategies and plans based on solid reasoning and research, and have objectives in a wide range of areas that are interconnected for the advancement of our movement. We recognise, for example, that physician education is important, but we realise that until they are paid better and have support similar to that with other illnesses, few are interested. Our community faces a large interwoven set of systemic problems, and needs systemic solutions, with some coming before others. While continuing to work on projects, we seek Federal funding to help our movement take a giant step forward, to begin to have the resources to achieve the rest of our needs.
FM-CFS Canada follows an Information Privacy Policy, a 24 point ethics policy, an Ethical Fundraising & Financial Accountability Code, and a pharmaceutical sponsorship policy, among others.
Roots, and Organisational Development:
The organisation was created by patients and physicians afflicted with CFS/ME & FM. Although many initiatives were advanced over the years, they eventually found that their medical conditions limited their ability to do all they wanted to do. This limitation affects other groups too. Involved from the very beginning have been Drs. Eva and Paul Grof, both distinguished human beings, who care very much for people with FM & CFS. They led a search for a team with additional skills, for healthy people to inspire.
Recruiting some of Ottawa's bright lights, in 2002, Dr. Grof & Dr. Ed Napke, and David Mann, stayed on for consistency with the guiding spirit and corporate knowledge, and a new team was formed. The founders had educated and involved new patients, physicians, and community and business leaders that possessed the reputation, experience and skill sets needed to pursue a wide range of goals. The charity began more relationships with specialist advisors (public relations, legal, governance, advice, etc.), similar to those found surrounding corporate Boards. They began talking with the leaders of large health charities to learn of their experiences, structures, and policies, meeting with some of their specialists in research, advocacy, public relations, and funding.
As you consider how much needs to be done for this movement, you may appreciate for the first time how important are groups like the Cancer Society, Arthritis Society, and so many others. Long overdue, this cause needs such resources too.
The earlier years: 1996 - 2003
We've run a web site for most of this period, reaching and connecting with people across the country. We've taken some care to build an extensive set of web links to other resources, have physicians review them, and organise them usefully for patients, family, physicians, researchers, and the media. To help our web site have the traits people come to expect we brought in outside help over the years, with the latest being a leading human-computer usability firm, Maskery & Associates.
We've long made it easy for people to contact us by providing a toll-free number in Canada (877-437-HOPE), and employing a flat-rate long-distance package to call them back at our expense. We receive many emails and calls from patients, doctors, families, helping them as best we can, encouraging them to help.
The majority of our day-to-day work was in the Eastern Ontario region and in Ottawa, conducting research, meeting with support groups, and educating patients, physicians, the media, and the public with free Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatgue Syndrome information.
The charity met and gave Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome seminars and workshops to more than 50 groups in the Eastern Ontario & western Quebec region, including patient groups, service clubs, churches, community health centres, and other community organisations like food banks and care-giver groups. From Pembroke to Barrie and points in between. Our former Chairman, David Mann, led this outreach initiative, often with his wife who has contributed to the charity in many ways.
Our deepest thanks to him for coming forward, for letting everyone know he battled these illnesses while he was a VP at Nortel and the Chairman of Ottawa's high technology association, OCRI. Perhaps it is his fine sense of humour that allows him to smile through this adversity.
We found ways to reach the business community. A donated booth at a national biotech trade show to increase awareness of our market's size in the business-medical community. We met medical research and pharmaceutical firms to ask of their plans.
Through the good graces of our Board and Advisory Board members we've been 'at' many other events (business and charity functions) and further developed friendships and support.
We've held wide variety of events. We held a press conference on Parliament Hill, thanks to Deputy House Leader Mauril Belanger. An awareness night at a popular club on the main street, with the live act donated as well. A local chiropractor and one of our Advisors, Patrick Faloon, shaved his head to raise funds and awareness. We invited local patient groups to join us to speak at City Hall when the Mayor recognised May 12th in 2003, and we had a booth open on the main rotunda in 2004. An Ottawa theatre troupe donated the proceeds of the opening night to us and gave us an opportunity to speak to their audience.
Over three years we held eight, online, 'Executive' auctions, each with senior business leaders volunteering to meet their winning bidder in exchange for a donation to the charity. The eight auctions were promoted to the business community through several local and national business associations, and to the general public through the media - every auction had several members of the media on auction and promoting our cause to their audience. We made new friends through the process, and raised funds. Click here for more.
FM-CFS Canada held three fine Ottawa Gala Balls, all featuring ballroom dancing, each year with a twist and different attractions. The Ottawa Congress Centre donated their scenic canal-facing ballroom, while the Arthur Murray Dance School offered advance lessons and demonstrations at the events. The events received press attention. We were helped at one by fashion designer Richard Robinson and Miss Canada, Lynsey Bennett. CTV's CJOH news anchor Carol Anne Meahan emceed one, CHUM's A-Channel's health reporter Jerri Southcott another, helping with the coverage. Well-known civil rights lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, one of Ottawa's most favoured auctioneers, helped us through each of the auctions. The Galas gave us a chance to inspire and educate hundreds of Ottawa's community leaders over the course of three years. Click here for more about the Galas. It is worth noting again that more than 500 items were on auction through the Galas, with our thanks to so many who helped, for the donated car, for the live music, the dance instructions, the shows.
To communicate regularly with patients and their families, we had a newsletter, ably arranged every quarter by a team of volunteers who would bring news, humour, and wisdom to print.
To further educate the public and the media, the charity arranged media interviews, Former Chairman David Mann did about ten interviews on radio, TV, and in print, in addition to his public speaking and advocacy. Shirley Westeinde, another well-known community and business leader in Ottawa, has also demonstrated leadership and courage by stepping forward with the fact that she has FM. Thank you Shirley. Recently the first woman Chair of the Canadian Construction Association and still the co-owner of one of Ottawa's best known construction firms, Shirley has been interviewed numerous times in TV and print interviews for us. Also, all of our Board members have spread the word among their friends, with our thanks.
In the area of research, FM-CFS Canada examined medical and systemic problems. We commissioned a study on the economic impacts to Canada. We studied patients and their needs, partly through our online Patient Registry, partly through meetings with them one-on-one and in groups. We video-taped interviews with patients. We've researched and studied the 'Patient Self Management Programs' of other charities, including UK and US organisations. We sent an Advisor to the International Pain Society's conference, and thanks to our past (and current) Medical Advisory Committee, including Dr. Anil Jain, co-author of the Concensus Protocols, who helped us understand trends and advances.
As part of our early advocacy, we met with the Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan' senior policy advisors and departmental officials to present our case, the economics of the situation, the need for assistance. We also met with local MPs (Belanger, Harb, and Catterall) to press the case. Ottawa's last Chief Medical Officer knows one of our Board members, Dr. Paul Grof, and he met us to learn about the illnesses and share his advice. He is now a regional health coordinator for Eastern Ontario.
In the transition to a new team that included founders, in 2002, we invited Lydia Neilson, M.S.M., of the National ME/FM Action Network, to become part of our Advisory team to help coordinate our national efforts. The Ontario Executive Director of the Arthritis Society joined us. We hired our first Executive Director, a former Mayor, who helped develop our contacts. launch new initiatives such as the Patient Registry, and put on events, such as the City Of Ottawa's recognition of May 12th.
In the past few years:
An Open Approach To Government
In late 2003 we started finding and talking to FM & ME/CFS patient groups across Canada. We sought to find the concensus on the role we could play in organising national efforts, developing shared resources, in short, about forming a coalition. By the end of 2004, nearly 100 groups had joined. You can see the coalition on our Support Group page.
Making a Case
We went from consulting groups, doctors, and researchers about the community's issues, to developing a survey of all the issues, inviting input from all patient groups. It was the first such document prepared by groups for Government. With it we formed a government relations strategy, and wrote a National Action Plan - a vision for the future and a business plan outline for it. Nearly 100 FM & CSF patient groups were listed in support of the submission.
Presenting to Government
FM-CFS Canada now includes the National ME/FM Action Network in meetings with Health Canada officials, as we did with the Chronic Disease unit's Director General.
Under the Liberal governments, FM-CFS Canada wrote to Cabinet members and their assistants showing each one how they benefit as our community benefits. Equally, we informed opposition parties of our cause. Of how nearly ten percent of Canada's population struggles with FM & CFS (patients and families combined), how they are taxed without an essential service that is provided freely to others. We've written to Provincial Health Ministers seeking letters of moral support for the cause, and to ensure they've been told of our problems, that a solution is in written form. We've told them of suicide, how lives are being turned upside down, how families are breaking up, how there is little rationale reason for hope if nothing significant is to be done soon. Fortunately, some Health Ministers do recognise the illnesses. Kudos to the efforts of the Provincial Group leaders, you know who you are, those of today's and yesterday's movement, we thank you.
FM-CFS Canada is now presenting our case to the new Conservative Government.
Showing the Costs
For the accountants, we've put the case in economic terms by showing how the Federal Government specifically spends several billion dollars every year on these illnesses. How to improve the outcome, how to make realise an ROI in the immediate, short, medium and long terms. Government has so far missed the short-term and long-term savings. Through inaction, raised the risk of more people needing Old-Age Assistance. The FM-CFS Canada plan calls for a small fraction of what governments spend. $25 million over three years to get started, to become self-sustaining. Against the projected three year Federal cost of $10 billion to $20 billion for the 20% to 40% of the FM or ME/CFS population that is unable to work, pay taxes and which collects disability insurance, (completely apart from health care costs).
Showing the Benefit
So far, two Conservatives have recently taken positions in our community's history, marking May `12th in the Senate. The first Federal Health Minister to stand up for FM & ME/CFS will take another page. A national research fund with an administrative body dedicated to these illnesses will mark another. And all of these costs in the mere millions, a chance to be heroes, a chance to impact the lives of not only the million patients, but the more than two million immediate family members with them.
Media & Public Education
Researching, Gathering Information
In late 2003, reviewing the web sites of Canada's FM & CFS patient groups, we couldn't find extensive media resources. Not even an extensive list of patient groups. Evidentally we needed a common press kit to synchronise statistics, messages, or strategy, background for stories, quotes, etc. We felt the path was clear, to build and share resources as the national group, to create a suite of communications resources.
New Materials
Over the course of a year we assembled diverse patient stories, more than 200 quotes from a range of authorities, gathered the facts, crunched numbers, listed research references, and presented story ideas. To make it easy for the media to find us, we built a national, online, contact list of knowledgeable researchers, physicians, lawyers, and patient groups. We must also thank Fallon and her mother, who have helped us show that these illnesses can happen to kids. Thanks to them for being public about it. We've been helped by volunteering French translators too, merci!
Media Preparation
We developed a media kit for local groups with common statistics, the costs to society, and counterpoints to common myths. We encourage every group to be ready with a patient and local health practitioner willing to be interviewed. Letters of moral support, by email and traditional means, are being collected so that all groups can combine their efforts to show that community leaders care, click here to see the growing collection.
Relationship Development
We started building relationships with the media. Media releases began being sent regularly to more than 400 members of the media, using donated contact-management software that makes the process easy. Instead of presenting human interest stories, we began to focus on the public policy issues.
Who Else?
We've also been investing time in relationships with influencers 'in' the health media, and 'outside,' contacting the relevant experts the media calls upon, adding the academics, experts, and institutional commentators to our database. Click here for the Media section.
French Canada
For the French media, FM-CFS Canada formed a media relationship with the three main Quebec groups to synchronize messages and timing, and ensure high quality French is available. FM-CFS Canada's Executive Director, a 16 year resident of Montreal who did graduate studies in French, has attended several Quebec FM & CFS meetings. The three main groups, that represent approximately 25 regional groups, are the Association québécoise de fibromyalgie, Association québécoise de l'encéphalomyélite myalgique, and the Fédération québécoise de fibromyalgie. The FM-CFS.ca site has had nearly 20,000 words translated to French.
Making May 12th official in Canada
Senator Wilbert Keon in 2006, with the unanimous support of the Senators in attendance, proclaimed May 12th as Canada's awareness day for FM & ME/CFS, in perpetuity. We sent our thanks to all Senators, and we thank also, Senator Marjorie LeBreton for making a Statement to the Senate in 2005.
Ottawa's Political News System
Thanks to MP and Deputy House Leader Mauril Belanger, we held a press conference on Parliament Hill, with its direct electronic feed to the national media. We've brought press kits to the Hot Room in the Center Block where the press have offices, and subsequently, we've delivered press kits to the National Press Club across from Parliament Hill, as part of our issues are political issues. We're now dealing with the new Government, aiming to be on the Parliamentary Health Committee's agenda.
A near miss?
We came second in a national competition of more than 200 charities (health, environment, etc) seeking a $2 million CanWest advertising prize. The Canadian Mental Health Association won it, kudos! We're cheered by a second place in distinguished company. Click here for our Press Release.
Medical Education
Family Physicians
To help family doctors, the College of Family Physicians set a challenge to us - come back with a 20-25 page guide for each of the FM & ME/CFS protocols, down from 130 pages each. With the help of recognised experts these educational materials were created: the Overviews on FMS & ME/CFS. A recent printing of 9,000 copies of the guides was well received with them being distributed across Canada and throughout the Ottawa area. FM-CFS Canada is working to raise funds for another large print run, along with the costs of mailing to more doctors.
FM-CFS Canada is now working to present online CMEs for physicians based on the Protocols, and has arranged partnerships to faciliate this. FM-CFS Canada is also working with the University of Ottawa to develop a model curriculum for medical students to share across Canada.
For Other Health Practitioners
Given the need to educate all health practitioners we've been talking with national professional associations covering a range of medical disciplines. Since then experts have been kindly volunteering to work with others in their field to write 20-25 page, profession-specific, guides for their peers. Aside from the guides for family physicians, we now have a guide for psychiatrists, and others in the works for nurses, physiotherapists, chiropractors and massage therapists. . We freely distribute the materials and by the way, included the cost of printing all of them in our national action plan.
Educational Materials
To freely distribute the full-length versions of the Concensus Protocols in the journal form we paid Haworth Press for permission to electronically distribute the Canadian Concensus Protocols in Canada. The FM-CFS.ca site also has Question and Answer sessions online with expert clinicians and researchers, to help bridge the gap between the very few experts and the rest of the community.
Tools, References, etc.
The collection of resources for physicians on our web site includes practical tools, indexes, charts, background research, guides for various experts, and perhaps as important on its own, a large selection of materials to give to patients.
Outreach: Nationwide
With the help of sponsors and foundations we're working towards the goal of reaching the 68,000 doctors across Canada to inform them about FM & CFS. Through them we will search for more patients and we'll encourage them to invite patients that are known community leaders to step forward. We've been providing brochures, posters and bookmarks to physicians and patient groups to find more of the community.
Outreach: CMA
FM-CFS Canada has been talking with the CMA for the past two years, on the phone, face to face, and by email. Some of their key staff members have FM or CFS in their families. We've worked to build support between people, and have recently been invited by their new President to submit an article to the Canadian Medical Association's Journal. There have been too few articles on these illnesses in the CMAJ. The CMA would approve the online CME as well.
Outreach: Other Medical Associations
Some of the national medical associations we've partnered with have offered help connecting with their members. One example is the Canadian Pharmacists Association, which offered an ad in their journal and helped distribute more than 200,000 bookmarks to pharmacists across Canada.
Outreach: Medical Media
We realise that our community needs a higher profile in the medical world. As part of a search for opportunities in medical media, we found an opportunity to invite the National ME/FM Action Network to co-write an article for the Medical Post which has 46,000 Canadian subscribers. The Canadian Nurses Pain Issues Working Group is presenting an article about our work, while ProHealth is covering our Q & A forums. We're seeking more opprtunities.
Patient Education:
Many Channels
FM-CFS Canada provides information for patients on our web site, through the media, through the network of patient groups, and directly by phone and email. The FM & CFS Protocol co-author Dr. Jain, formerly on our Medical Advisory Board for five years, did an hour-long TV call-in show for us, as a variety of media interviews have aimed to help patients learn about resources. Our online Q & A sessions, the research news updates, a two-hour podcast by Dr. Jon Russell, and a blog, are the beginnings of our more interective web site.
The Goal in Print Form
Our ambition is to join the efforts of the various experts involved in creating educational materials for their Canadian peers, to develop a single, free, multidisciplinary guide for patients. Canadian patients deserve a free guide that they can trust is 100% consistent with Canada's health care system's medications and practices. Canadian patients deserve to know where to find the latest version of it, there always needs to be a 'latest' version of it, and a mechanism for notices of change. We don't have this yet, but it can come at the end of the health practitioner education exercise when the entire team is certain of the advice in each of their disciplines, with reviews, etc.. Ideally, evidence-based science would determine the therapies in each discipline, but we'll need to use a concensus in most fields as is done for the Family Doctors, in advance of the evidence-based research that is used as a gold-standard for the treatment of other illnesses.
Educational Model
Of special interest to us for many years has been how patient education is handled in other chronic illnesses, in other countries, and for FM & CFS in particular. Our Chairman gives this area his special attention. We believe the current best practice that is economic for the large population is a team-based approach, with individual care complemented by group settings with certified instructors as part of an introduction process for the patients, at a lower relative cost than having each personn meet individually with each expert. Stanford University's Kate Lorig founded and certifies such an approach which has been widely adopted outside of Canada, but locally by the Canadian Arthritis Society as one example, and we've talked about their program with them. We've purchased US research upon the advice of Dr. Lorig and followed the experiences of others. In the UK, the multidisciplinary education approach is being used for FM & CFS in Britain as part of their Long Term Medical Care Alliance initiative. FM-CFS Canada been given reports and background information on the operation of these programs from their administrators and has shared it with the Federal government.
Educational Leaders
Fortunately such 'best practices' education is present in Canada, unfortunately, only in a few examples. We know of four hospitals in Ontario are offering multidisciplinary FM programs, of 169 hospitals. Working with Carleton University's Social Sciences Department and four of their graduate students we researched and compared the four Ontario hospitals offering multidisciplinary educational programs. Alberta's pilot of an interdisciplinary approach is nominally open to FM & CFS too. Early intervention is shown to reduce the severity of illness - this is a big opportunity area for Canada.
Research
What Do They Say?
Researchers need help in every health cause, so it is for our cause. We've networked with researchers across Canada and asked their needs. In response, we're doing what we can at this stage of our development path.
A Custom Home
We asked if there was a single place they looked to find each other online. The online Research Hub is now a place that researchers can shape to fit their needs and a place where new researchers can find the established ones and research news. And the kind efforts of Beth Ediger have contributed a quarterly review of FM research for all to see. A volunteer with a Biology Ph.D. helps run it, and we have outside contributors. Thanks to a sponsor, we can offer researchers a free, online, professional-strength, survey tool, and thanks to another, a private discussion forum can be freely arranged. We're doing Question and Answer sessions online with Researchers registered in the Hub. Breaking news can be dissected, explained, stored for future reading.
Connecting with Patients
We asked researchers how they found patients and they said it was difficult, time consuming, and expensive. To help we've been inviting patients to participate in the
Patient Registry where we can make it free and fast to find patients. To date, the patient volunteers have helped three university researchers learn more about the illnesses, with another to come in February. (Researchers send invitations to patients through us and don't get access to the patient data). To recruit more research volunteers, funds donated by AVG Anti-Virus covered the cost of printing and distribution so that patient groups across the country and the Canadian Pharmacists' Association could help us distribute nearly 250,000 bookmarks. We've learned more about the community as the patients fill in the questionnaire.
Getting Involved
In 2005, thanks to regular attendance at local health research meetings, we met and helped an Ottawa U. researcher prepare an FM proposal that received funding. There is important work done on the research world's central Cochrane listing of FM, headed by the University of Ottawa Population Health Unit, to which we contributed.
Funding for a Health Crisis
Evidently, researchers need funding. Did you know the Federal Government has only funded one FM study. Their smaller, hypothesis-testing studies are not yet financially supported by FM & CFS patient groups in Canada, not in the way that other health conditions direct funding to research. We must vision the future we want - what is reality for other major health charities, and we must work towards it.
Canada also needs a university-based Research Chair to provide useful coordination and direction. Dr. Howard Alper, O.C, Ph.D., FRSC, an advisor and the most recent Vice Rector of Research at the University of Ottawa, has advised us on these matters. We build the Research Hub with the notion that one day the Research Chair will take over such functions, but be able to start with some foundations already in place. We also know we have more outreach to do in the research world, and we look forward to connecting with researchers interested in FM & CFS.
The Accepted Gold Standard
Clear evidence-based findings on what works for whom. This is the gold standard used in seeking changes in health policy, as demonstrated by the other major health charities. Our Government submission asked the Federal Government for funding, for prevalence studies and to help validate the Consensus Protocols, which are, after all, just a concensus - in the words of Dr. Russell, one of the authors. Part of the problem is that there seem to be poorly understood subgroups of patients that respond differently, so one protocol doesn't apply to all patients, unlike fixing a broken leg, for example.
Research Is News
We're taking our research case to the press too, helping them understand our health crisis - that tens of thousands of innocent people are stricken with FM & CFS every year. We arrive at this number by dividing the million patients by 50 years, which suggests 20,000 patients per year would be an average, although the number is higher now than it would have been fifty years ago. It's the equivalent of a small city being lost to FM or CFS every year. We argue that the limited research findings are normal for the early period of investigation, not a reason to avoid doing research or taking action.
More Organisational Development
Learning from Others
We've learned from other major health charities, spending many hours over the past three years talking with five of them about their growth path, their structure, and a variety of their policies and experiences. These better known major health charities, Cancer, Breast Cancer, Arthritis, Diabetes, and MS, have kindly answered every question. They've shared materials, helped us make connections. The executive director of FM-CFS Canada conducted research on health policy in graduate school, and has a rudimentary knowledge of the system and its trends, so their advice has been helpful in understanding the practical side of health care organisations.
Many thanks to Volunteers
We've involved volunteers nationwide. Some have helped form groups in their areas. Some help prepare for the press, building media resources. Nearly all of the approximately 2000 patients in the research registry have also volunteered to help with email campaigns. Some patients have helped us inform editors about our cause, while others have written to politicians, gathered letters of moral support, or scanned the research for us. Still more volunteers asked their cities to recognise May 12th. - 2005 saw the largest ever number of cities recognise May 12th. We provide a wide range of volunteer opportunities. Firms have been volunteering their expertise, their resources. Law students at Canadian universities have been volunteering to help research what wins or loses FM & CFS cases, as of 2007 there are 30 students at six universities. And we encourage patients to volunteer with their local groups.
Experts
Indeed, experts have been helping. From governance policies, to the design and production of a set of promotional materials, to advising on press and political matters, providing legal advice in various areas, to providing specialised services or products useful to the campaign, including media monitoring, computers and software. Visit our partners page to see some of them, bearing in mind that some are not listed as they want no recognition at all. Their resources extend our ability to act and lower our costs, for which we thank them.
Foundations, Gifts
In addition to the financial help of three foundations, two thanks to our former Chairman, we've been helped by firms and individuals with gifts that have led to new initiatives. AVG Anti-Virus software and Swiss Medica, a topical pain reliever firm, have both contributed significant funds.
Standards for the Internet
In 2004 the FM-CFS.ca site attained HONcode approval by the international health information network of the United Nations. We've also been designated a network contributor to the Canadian Health Network. The site features an online donation tool, hosts pages for some patient groups, and has translated the main pages to French to serve all of our friends as best we can.
Together & Forward
We recognise the efforts of others, providing recognition for their events and achievements. The National ME/FM Action Network's founder and CEO joined our Advisory Board in 2003, and attends our Board meetings.
Ottawa, our home base
In Ottawa we develop, test and refine initiatives that can be shared elsewhere. In early 2006 with the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and the Ottawa Hospital (Civic, General and Riverside merger) Chronic Pain Center director, we've sent educational and promotional tools to 1,000 local family physicians in the Greater Ottawa area. We continue to deliver local educational sessions to health practitioners.
To raise awareness, we're reaching out to specific communities and finding support, in business, arts, service clubs, and in the diplomatic community. We will continue to hold public events to involve the media, and are thankful that CTV Ottawa is contributing a year-long advertising campaign. We also meet with groups regularly within a 50 km radius of Ottawa, there are six local groups, working with them to achieve new things.
Enough?
There's more, as you will see on our web site in its various sections. You'll see resources for caregivers. Materials for groups - stats, promotional materials, an emotionally moving video about FM, TV and radio ads, all tools that local groups are welcome to use.
A fine team
Our Directors and Advisors have done a fine job, one might say. There is much to be done, we believe we clearly see what needs to be done. There are many parts to the solution, but movement in each helps the other. Our hope, at the end of the day, is that we make a difference.
In Conclusion:
We're committed and passionate about making things better as soon as possible for the community. We don't believe this community must prepare for another decade to be qualified to receive major help. Business leaders have joined our team to reinforce the message that we're prepared to move in a serious fashion if help is offered.
